“What’s up?” I ask when I’m back on the couch.
“I’m always wondering, but I’ve never asked,” he says. “What’s a girl like you doing hanging around all afternoon, three days a week, with an old fart like me?”
“First of all, you’re not—”
“Save it. I know what I am. A goddamned piece of flatulence,” Ernie insists. “Well?”
“Well, what?” I ask.
He is quiet a minute, and then he speaks, his eyes serious, “Why do I get the feeling that I’m replacing something for you?”
I swallow hard.
“You’re not replacing anything,” I say when I manage to speak. But the truth is, we both know he’s right. He’s replacing the family I thought I’d never lose, just the way Willow is replacing the friends I thought I’d always have.
“Hmph,” he says, clearly dissatisfied with my answer, but we go back to listening to the music and not speaking.
As I’m leaving Ernie’s place just after three, my phone vibrates in my pocket and I answer it.
“Hi, honey!” The cheeriness in my mom’s voice is even more unexpected than the call itself. It really shouldn’t surprise me, because that’s a thing my mom does these days. Call me.
“Just wondering when you’re coming home,” she says.
“I’m just leaving All Saints. I had to work, remember?” I probably should have texted to remind her, but I’m still not used to checking in with anyone about where I am.
“Are you sure you’re not working too hard, Jessi? Two jobsandvolunteering at the club?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” I say.
“All right.” There’s a short, awkward silence; then she sighs. “Well, I just wanted to see where you were. Drive safe, okay?”
I tell her I will and hang up.
My mother has changed so much this past year that I still have trouble believing that this new version of her, Mom 2.0, is here to stay. The memories of our quiet house and the dark of my parents’ bedroom gives me whiplash, and it’s easier to focus on my conversation with Ernie than to remember how things used to be.
So I go back to what Ernie said about the people he’s replacing, and soon I’m in a sinkhole made of the past. I’m drowning in thoughts of Mel and Ro and Luke, and even Sydney.
I’m usually good about not acting on my impulses, but on my drive home, I break.
I let myself do the thing I rarely ever do.
I drive by the Cohen house on the far east side of town. Slow down to get a good look at the car I don’t recognize and let myself wonder, for just a minute, what my life would be like if last summer never happened.
2
THEN
For the wholeweek after we found out she was sick, I could hardly look at Mel without bursting into tears. Not quiet, dainty ones either, but loud, jerky hiccups. Sometimes I swore I could feel Ro’s eyes on me, and I thought about what he’d said that night.
Imagine if this was your mom.
Did he feel as if I were hijacking Mel, binding myself to their family, to their pain, when it wasn’t mine?
And how could he possibly think that? That it wasn’t mine, too?
I’d grown up following the same rules Ro and Luke did, hearing the same bedtime stories, being hugged and chastised and loved the same way they were. I had more memories of Mel tucking me in than I did of my mother doing so. In all the ways that mattered, Mel was family to me.
How did Ro not see that?
